Welcome to Remnant
by Maybe Im Blank
Summary: When Kirito (Sword Art Online), Shiba Tatsuya (The Irregular At Magic High School), Minoru Utsugi (The Isolator), and a mysterious robot man named BIOS are trapped in the world of Remnant (from RWBY), they must work together to survive and return to their worlds. (Note: This story could probably be rated T, but I've set to M just in case the violence is too much.)
1. Prologue

Kirito:

"Are you sure this is going to work properly, Higa-san?"

"Of course, Kirigaya-kun! All the wrinkles have been ironed out."

 _You say that, but…_

Thinking about the last two times he had been here, Kirigaya Kazuto looked around the room. He was sitting on top of the bed of an experimental full-dive machine, the Soul Translator (STL), waiting for the researcher Higa Takeru, one of the head scientists at Rath, to finish the preparations for testing.

The previous two tests, the STL's quantum processor had interfaced with other quantum computers in what seemed to be other realities, instead of loading up the test environment.

The first time, he had ended up fighting a person wearing full body metallic armor, going by the name Silver Crow, in what seemed to be a full-dive fighting game, similar to those old arcade fighters.

The second time, he had entered a simulation being run by someone from another reality, Shiba Tatsuya, who he had met previously when Shiba somehow got trapped as the final boss of a campaign quest in ALfheim Online.

The first time, he had ended up as his avatar from Sword Art Online, and the second time, despite asking Higa-san to give him a preloaded avatar, he ended up as his avatar from ALO.

After both tests he had told Higa-san that the test environment had failed to load, and been reassured that it would be fixed by the next time.

Now, for the third Sunday in a row, he was testing the STL.

 _It's not like the same thing will happen a third time, right? Actually, didn't I ask myself that last time?_

While Kirito, as his friends called him, thought this to himself, Higa-san finished preparing the STL.

"Alright, ready to go?"

Putting on the headpiece as he gave an affirmative, Kirito lay down. The last thing he heard before entering the full-dive environment was Higa-san saying, "Have fun!"

* * *

Shiba Tatsuya:

Something was wrong.

The 'Five Sense Reproduction-Type Virtual Simulator' was taking longer to load up than usual.

Of course, it wasn't unusual for it to take a long time to start, but this time, it was taking more than three times as long as usual to boot.

 _Hopefully it's not broken_ , thought Shiba Tatsuya, as he checked the system boot log.

It would not have been strange for the simulator to be so slow to start if it were rendering terrain, but Tatsuya always used the interior of a blank white sphere as the environment, and he had not changed anything this time.

Just as he was about to cancel the simulator's boot sequence, it finished starting up.

He looked at it for a second, then started preparing to enter the simulation, wondering why it had taken so long.

* * *

The Isolator:

"Isolator, look out!"

Minoru Utsugi, codename: 'Isolator', had to leap to the side to avoid the attack.

Normally, he'd be able to simply act like a tank, walking towards the enemy at a leisurely pace while his barrier protected him against the enemy's attacks, but today they were fighting a Ruby Eye known as The Warper.

The Warper was able to create portals to any location, and therefore used portals for all her attacks. Creating portals to empty space 500 meters in the air, throwing small wormholes at people to carve out parts of their body, and placing doorways to the moon in crowded places were some of her favorite things to do.

This made it much harder on Minoru, as the portals, being immaterial, could pass through his barrier.

As he moved to circle the Warper, he suddenly tripped over a rock in the shadows. Before he could hit the ground, though, a portal appeared underneath him, and he fell through.

Just before the portal closed, he could hear Suu screaming his name.

* * *

?:

He stared at the anomaly. His robot companions were nearby, waiting to help if it situation turned dangerous.

He and his team had been exploring the ruins of an old laboratory on Mars, when they can across this… thing. They could tell it was some sort of dimensional anomaly, but otherwise had no what they were dealing with.

The anomaly looked similar to the light distortions seen on a hot day, but was clearly different. This was bending space, not light.

Despite warnings from one of his companions, a small floating robot hovering by his shoulder, light shining from its single eye, he put his arm into the anomaly.

"I can't feel anything on the other side. I'm going to put my head through, see if there's anything there.

Hearing this, the companion who had been warning him disappeared, and he heard its voice in through his helmet's speakers.

"I'm rather opposed to this, but we all know I can't stop you." Then, addressing the other robot, he asked, "What do you think?"

The other machine, a defective alien robot whose self-repairs has turned it into a mishmash of parts from both human and alien combat units, replied quickly in a strangely modulated voice.

"I cAnnOt OppOsE thE ActIOns Of my mAstEr. I shALL gO whErE hE gOEs, And dO whAt hE sAys."

"Why do you always say that?! And you," The small machine now addressed the man. "Why haven't you replaced his voice module yet?!"

"I haven't found a replacement yet. I'll replace it when we actually have something to replace it with."

Having decided the conversation was over, the man put his head through the tear in reality.

Immediately, it began pulling him in. Within seconds, he had been pulled entirely through, and the tear had mended itself behind him. He hadn't even had time to scream.

His small floating companion had been pulled through with him, leaving the patchwork robot there alone. It immediately began the long journey back to the ship.

Meanwhile, the man fell through the space between stars...


	2. Chapter 1: Where Are We?

"Well, that's interesting."

Tatsuya had entered the simulation, and immediately found his vision completely filled by what appeared to be a computer boot screen, with a graphic of what seemed to be a company logo and the word 'Atlas' in the background.

This had never happened before.

He waited for the system, whatever it was for, to finish booting up, then looked around.

The walls of the room were a clinical white, and the ceiling had to be around 10 meters up. All around him, there were racks of metallic humanoid bodies. Robots.

The racks stretched to the ceiling, and seemed to be on some sort of rotating wheel, likely to bring them to ground level for unloading.

Noticing then that he, too, was raised off the ground, Tatsuya looked down at himself, and immediately understood why. He _was_ one of the robots.

Quickly thinking it over, he found an answer. Just like how he had met someone from another reality through a quantum link between the simulator and a computer in the other world, the simulator must have linked with this robot, allowing him to control it.

Suddenly, the robot next to him cried out in a voice he recognized, "Again?! This has happened every time I've tested it!"

Could it be? "Kirito-shounen?"

"Shiba-san?"

It seemed they had met yet again. It was starting to seem like it was intentional, but that was impossible.

Before they could say anything else, they saw a hole appear midair, and a teenage boy fell out.

As Tatsuya and Kirito looked on, dumbfounded, the air a couple meters to the side started shimmering, before spitting out a masculine-looking humanoid in full-body armor. They weren't sure whether it was human or a robot, but it seemed to be unconscious or inoperative.

Now, even more confused at a person(?) falling out of nothing than at a hole appearing in midair, it was a few moments before anyone spoke. First to talk was Kirito.

"Hey, can you get us down from here? We seem to be locked in place."

The boy seemed confused at being addressed by a robot, or possibly at the idea of a self-aware robot, but Kirito and Tatsuya were more interested in getting down than explaining.

"We don't have time for you to be confused. Just get us down," At these words from Tatsuya, the boy started looking around the room.

Seeing a panel on the wall, he ran up to it. Seeing the interface on it, he commented, "That's strange, it's all in English," then pressed the release button corresponding to the rack and shelf number number that the two active robots were on.

However, he had forgotten to bring the rack to floor level, so Kirito and Tatsuya, along with the three other robots on the rack, crashed to the floor.

"Oh! Sorry! I didn't think about that."

"It's fine. Besides, it seems that we're currently robots, so we can probably take a lot of damage before we break," replied Tatsuya, prompting and exclamation from Kirito.

"Oh! Damage! I can see health bars over people's heads! Although, actually, er… What's your name?"

"Minoru Utsugi, but people call me Isolator."

"Umm… Okay. Well, Isolator's health bar shows empty, for some reason, and Mister Robot over there doesn't even show one."

"That's because it's not a health bar. It's an IFF tag."

'Mister Robot' had apparently woken up at some point, and was currently getting up. Considering he had landed on his head from a height of around five meters, he likely should not have even been alive, and yet he didn't seem to be hurt at all.

"'IFF'?"

"It stands for 'Identification, Friend or Foe', and it should tell you the person's rank, name, and whether or not they're an ally. If I knew what that bar was, I'd tell you. What I can tell you is that that bar isn't health, since this isn't a game."

"So, how do I use it?"

"If you look at your fellow robot over there, it should show you a colored tag, along with a unit designation, and a rank insignia next to that. Color marks affiliation, unit designation would normally be name, and you likely won't see a rank. I'm guessing since you don't know this stuff, you must be controlling the robot remotely and inadvertently."

"Right on all counts. We're controlling the robots via an interdimensional quantum link. I'm actually supposed to be testing a new full-dive machine, and I'm guessing Shiba-san was running a simulation."

Tatsuya confirmed this with a nod of his head.

Isolator, however seemed confused. He likely had never heard any of the terminology they were using.

The robot man ignored this, saying, "Hey, Boot. Check what frequencies their IFF uses, and sync my HUD."

"You know, you could stand to be a bit more polite."

Before the others could ask who he was talking to, a small robot appeared over his shoulder and flew towards them. A cone of blue light shined from its eye, roaming over Tatsuya. It then flew over to Isolator, and, asking him to put his hand out, materialized a small object.

"Put this in your eye. It's an IFF tag and scanner, packaged together as a contact lens."

As Boot flew back over to the man to update his IFF, Isolator places the lens in his eye.

The man then spoke.

"Now that I've explained that, I think it's time for introductions. I'm BIOS, and my Ghost, that floating robot, is called Boot."

Tatsuya and Kirito immediately caught on to that. They spoke simultaneously.

"BIOS? As in-"

Before they could finish, BIOS answered their question.

"Yes, as in Basic Input-Output System."

That was a strange name for a person. Unless…

"You're not actually a robot, are you?"

"No. And BIOS is not my original name. It's just been so many centuries since I've heard my actual name, I forgot it. So, I go by my call sign. Now, who are you three?"

"Kirigaya Kazuto. I go by Kirito."

"My name is Shiba Tatsuya."

"I'm Minoru Utsugi. People call me Isolator."

Once they had all introduced themselves, a voice came from behind them.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself, too. I'm General Ironwood, and I would like to know how you got into this secure facility."

They turned to find a man with graying hair, wearing a long white coat, leveling a strangely bulky handgun at them. Behind him stood a squad of men in armored exoskeletons.

* * *

 **20 minutes earlier, location unknown**

General Ironwood, head of the nation-company Atlas, sat at his desk, looking over a pile of reports, requests, and other official documents. He had been sitting there for the better part of the past 3 days, leaving his work only for food, sleep, and bathroom breaks.

In the wake of the attack on Beacon, during which an entire army of Atlesian Knights and several squads of Paladins had been hacked and made to attack noncombatants and friendly units, there had been hundreds of complaints, threats, and lawsuits against both the Atlas Corporation and himself. Many of these, especially the lawsuits, had needed to be sent directly to him, as they required his authority to take action, and he was bone-tired. Suddenly, a soldier burst into the room.

"General Ironwood, sir! Cameras have detected movement in charging bay 43A!"

"Then go deal with it."

"Sir, one of the intruders is armed, and two of the Atlesian Knights on the charging racks have activated on their own."

This caught the General's attention.

"Have we been hacked again?"

"Tech heads aren't seeing any outside interference, but they say the main computer is interfacing with itself."

"Do you know what anything you just said actually means?"

"Actually, yeah."

"Oh. Well, gather a security team, and wait for me outside the charging bay. I need to grab something."

The soldier gave an affirmative, then ran out to find some of his comrades.

The general stepped out of his office, locked it, and walked off in the direction of the labs.

* * *

 **Lab 13**

As General Ironwood stepped stepped through the door into the lab, he spotted a security team struggling to restrain the new prototype.

If he remembered correctly, that prototype was not supposed to be online for another week, but it seemed the scientists had decided to test it early.

The prototype, a humanoid machine covered in silver-colored armor, released an array of what appeared to be metal blades from its back. The blades, not connected to anything and magnetically suspended, floated into position behind the prototype, forming wings. The next moment, the wings started vibrating, lifting the robot into the air and launching it at one of the members of the security team.

Despite its efforts, the prototype was unarmed, and the security team was slowly pushing it back. They would soon have it restrained.

Seeing that the machine was under control, the general turned towards one of the work stations. The scientist standing there was the head scientist for this lab.

"I need to borrow the EMP device."

The scientist looked up from his work.

"Why?"

"Two of the Atlesian Knights have activated on their own. I don't want to have to deal with trying to fight them."

"Activated on their own? The prototype did that, too. Scared the research team half to death. It doesn't seem to want to be shut down, either."

That would explain why the security team had to get involved.

"So, can I have the gun?"

"Sure, why not? If you're only using it against Knights, I see no problem."

"Also, when you have the prototype contained, don't wipe it or make any changes to it. I'd like to save it for later use, since it seems to be fighting so well."

"Of course."

* * *

 **Present time, outside charging bay 43A**

General Ironwood looked down at the Scroll one of the security team members had handed him. On its screen was a live feed from one of the cameras inside the charging bay. Four figures could be seen. Two Atlesian Knights, a teenage boy, and a large figure that appeared to be a robot, though no one had seen one like it before.

The unknown robot-looking figure had a bullpup assault rifle and a rocket launcher on its back, and a small handgun clipped to the back of its belt.

"Why was I not notified that one of the intruders is a robot?"

"That's not a robot, sir. We're picking up signs of life from inside of it, so it seems to be some sort of armored suit. Up until a few seconds ago, its IFF tag was unrecognized. It's showing friendly now, though. It seems to have been calibrated based on the Knights."

"Can we get audio?"

"The charging bay cameras don't pick up audio, sir. They're only there to look for rogue robots, and since the robots don't speak, it was assumed that there would be no need for sound. Nobody expected intruders to make it this far undetected."

"I'm going in then. Follow me."

The general silently opened the door and stepped through, hearing the tail end of their conversation. They seemed to be introducing themselves, and the teenage boy was talking.

"—ugi. People call me Isolator."

The security team fanned our behind him, and as he leveled the EMP gun at the two robots and the armored man, he spoke.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself, too. I'm General Ironwood, and I would like to know how you got into this secure facility."

The four figures spun around, the robot man drawing his rifle. They immediately froze upon seeing the twelve-man security team standing behind him.

The man holding the rifle spoke first.

"Alright. I can see where this would go if we fought you. I could probably take you on, but I doubt these three could. I'm going to put down my rifle and slide it over to you, then unclip my sidearm and rocket launcher and slide those over. We can talk it out then, figure out what's going on."

The other three made comments to the general effect that he was underestimating them, but agreed that it was not worth it to fight the security team.

* * *

 **Ironwood's Office**

Ironwood had quickly taken the lead in the conversation, and they had already introduced themselves. Ironwood was now trying to get BIOS to remove his helmet.

"BIOS. Please take your helmet off."

"No."

"Why not?"

"The helmet never comes off."

"Please. I find it very uncomfortable to be talking to you with your helmet on, and I'm sure your companions do, too."

"They aren't my companions."

"Fine. Whatever."

Completely failing to realize that he could simply withhold any answers until BIOS removed his helmet, Ironwood conceded.

"So, to start off, I'm going to be asking questions, and you four will be answering. First, what are you doing here?"

Kirito answered this one with the question all four of them were thinking.

"Where is here?"

"Excuse me?"

"We have no idea what we're doing here, and it might help to know where we are."

Ironwood was dumbfounded. How could somebody break into a secure facility like this one without knowing what it was?

"And by where, I mean, what nation are we in? What continent? Actually, What planet?"

This made no sense. It was one thing to not know what building a person was in, but how could someone not know what planet they were on? And yet, Kirito seemed entirely serious.

"Do you seriously not not know?"

Now it was Tatsuya's turn to answer.

"If you look back at the security footage, you'll notice Isolator fell out of a hole that appeared in midair, and BIOS appeared out of nowhere. Although, we may be able to tell you what we did that got us here. We will need to know what this place is first, though, to give a definitive answer."

Thinking this over, Ironwood decided that, since they seemed to be truly ignorant of where they were, it would do no harm to explain it.

"Well, then. In that case, here's what you need to know: This world is called Remnant. There are four continents, named Sanus, Solitas, Anima, and Menagerie. There are four nations, called, Vacuo, Vale, Atlas, and Mistral. Vacuo and Vale are on Sanus, Mistral is on the continent of Anima, Menagerie is its own independent nation, and Atlas, where we are now, is on Solitas. We are currently in a secure Atlas research center and barracks.

"Our world is plagued by the Creatures of Grimm. They generally take the form of pitch-black silhouettes of normal animals, with bony white armor. We aren't sure where they come from, but we know they are attracted to hotspots of negative emotion and will attack humans on sight. They do not attack other animals.

"In order to combat the Grimm, we have created teams of trained fighters, known as Huntsmen and Huntresses, to fight off Grimm attacks and reclaim territory from them. Does that answer your questions?" It seemed Ironwood was done with his explanation.

BIOS now responded.

"Yes, it does. Now, you wanted to know how we got here? Well, you may not believe us, but we I think we can tell you. I'm pretty sure I fell through a rift in reality."

Speaking next, Isolator's answer was just slightly less absurd, given the existence of Semblances in this world.

"I was fighting someone who can create wormholes, and I fell into one. I'm guessing it was set to send me here."

Now, Kirito asked a question.

"Do your robots use quantum CPUs?"

This was not a question the general had been expecting, and it threw him off for a second. It took him several seconds to answer.

"Er… Yes. The Atlesian Knights do use quantum CPUs. Why does that matter though?"

The answer came from Tatsuya this time.

"Kirito and I are from different realities, and different time periods. In my world, Magic was discovered late in the 20th century, and it's nearly the end of the 21st century."

Kirito picked it up at this point.

"In my world, we have advanced virtual reality technology, but no magic, and it's about a quarter of the way through the 21st century. We were able to meet each other previously because of a quantum interface between a simulator he was using and a virtual reality device I was testing. I believe that the quantum CPUs in your 'Atlesian Knights' are interfacing with the machines we're using, allowing us to control them."

While this explanation seemed far-fetched, it made far more sense than the explanations BIOS and Isolator had given.

Since the four of them didn't seem dangerous, at least not when BIOS was unarmed, the general decided to let them leave.

"You may leave this facility and roam the town, but I want you to stay within the town boundaries, and you are not to go anywhere where the Atlas guards cannot see you."

It seemed this was agreeable, as the four of them nodded.


	3. Chapter 2: Abilities and Armaments

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has decided to read this! I honestly didn't expect many people to be interested in this, but it got more than 20 visits on the first day. I look forward to writing more, and hope I can get some feedback to make my writing better.**

 **On another note, I'm sure some of you are wondering about when Kirito met Tatsuya and Silver Crow (look back to the prologue if you don't know what I'm talking about). To answer that, those were not events made up for story convenience. According to the canon, they have met.** ** _"Dream Game -Crossover-"_** **is a side story by the author of The Irregular, where Tatsuya and Miyuki end up temporarily stuck in ALfheim Online as NPCs in a campaign quest. Kirito fights Silver Crow in Volume 10 of the Accel World LN, in the size story** ** _Versus_** **. Kirito and Tatsuya meet again in another individually published side story, called** ** _Versus II_** **(I know, real creative name), and, rather than fighting, Tatsuya uses his impressive math skills to send Kirito back to his world.**

 **So, with that explanation complete (sorry it was so long), let's return to the story.**

* * *

Kirito, Tatsuya, Minoru, and BIOS were wandering around town, having been given permission by Ironwood to leave the facility. As per the general's conditions, their weapons had been confiscated (although BIOS was the only one who actually carried any weapons), and they had to stay within sight of the guard that had been assigned to keep an eye on them, but they otherwise had free reign. They were currently at a diner, as it seemed BIOS and Minoru had not yet eaten lunch when they fell into this world. Tatsuya and Kirito had also missed lunch, but, since they weren't in human bodies, they did not get hungry or need food. As such, they were simply participating in the conversation. And what an unusual conversation it was.

It had started with a question from BIOS.

"So, does anyone else here have any... unusual abilities?

Though the question seemed to throw the other three off guard, they recovered quickly. Minoru Utsugi, The Isolator, was first to answer, speaking haltingly.

"I uh... I have this weird uh, gray orb from... from space in my chest. It sort of just slipped in while I was out running one night, and now I can create a barrier around myself."

This seemed to pique everyone's interest, and after being asked to explain more about the barrier, he continued speaking.

"The orb apparently can give people whatever ability they need to get what they want most. The only thing I actually want is isolation, so I ended up with an unbreakable barrier about three centimeters away from my body. Anything that isn't already in contact with me or doesn't fit inside the barrier gets forced away when to barrier activates. It blocks sound, matter, and all radiation except visible light. Oh, it also makes my hits much more powerful, and has an unlimited air supply."

This seemed to stun the others. Kirito finally spoke.

"Isn't that a bit... overpowered?"

Boot, BIOS's companion, didn't seem to think so, and answered through BIOS's helmet speakers.

"It's not overpowered. 'Overpowered' is a term used to refer to something in a game that gives an unfair advantage over the enemy team. In real life, no advantage is unfair. And besides, that barrier likely has some sort of downside."

Isolator seems to think this over, then nodded, saying, "Well, since it blocks sound, I can't hear my teammates, and I can't cover other people with it unless I don't really notice them. Also, if I fail to cover someone with it, or they lose physical in contact with me while they're in it, it'll sort of reject them and send them flying. One of my teammates almost died when she let go of me while the barrier was active." He did not seem to want to remember this, as he now went silent. Seeing this, Boot suggested they move on to the next person.

Attention now turned to BIOS, but he told them he would go last. With this, everyone now looked to Tatsuya. He began by saying, "I can use magic." Everyone was now listening closely, so he continued.

"By manipulating Psions, or thought particles, I can perform magic by rewriting reality. It's not like old fairy tails, though. There are specific types of magic, and not everything can be done by magic. For example, using freezing magic, a magician can move energy from a section of water into another area, reducing the temperature and freezing the water into ice. However, thermal control magic cannot produce a floating ball of magma from nothing."

Everyone nodded in understanding at this, so he continued.

"With modern magic, rather than using rituals or spells to cast magic, magic is activated using technology. A CAD is preloaded with activation sequences, which, when called, are sent to a magicians's magic calculation area, in their subconscious mind, where it is expanded and cast. Since I don't have my CADs with me, I cannot use all my magic, but, since, for reasons I'm not going to explain, my magic calculation area is in my conscious mind, I can cast any spell that I have memorized the activation sequence for. Sadly, that limits me to Decomposition, Regrowth, and Elemental Sight."

Since the spell names he gave seemed pretty self-explanatory, nobody asked for clarification. Everyone assumed, based on the spell names, that they were somehow related to plants, and failed to realize that these spells were some of Tatsuya's most powerful abilities. Once again, they all looked to BIOS, hoping he would speak next, but he was instead pushing his food around with his fork. Refusing to take his helmet off, but being unable to eat with it on (as far as they could tell), he had not yet taken even a bite. Since he obviously did not plan to say anything, Kirito spoke instead.

"Well, this kind of embarrassing, but... I, uh, I don't have any powers or anything. I'm just really good with a sword."

He seemed rather uncomfortable, since he was the only one so far with no powers, and BIOS had implied that he had powers, based on the way the question was phrased. Sparing him the discomfort, everyone looked at BIOS... and immediately went wide-eyed with amazement. While the space in front of him on the table had been taken up by a tray full of food just seconds ago, when Kirito started talking, it was now all gone.

Two plates of food, a large bowl of soup, and a mug of tea. Gone. In under thirty seconds. Even the three cookies he had ordered seemed to have disappeared.

None of them had even noticed him move, let alone take off his helmet. Even if he could manage to remove his helmet and eat his food without them noticing, it was impossible for any human to eat so much in such a short period of time. This seemed to even be enough to surprise Tatsuya, though his face quickly returned to its usual expressionless mask.

After a couple moments, BIOS looked over at them, and, ignoring their expressions of disbelief, asked, "What are you looking at me for? Boot hasn't spoken yet."

Boot now materialized, withdrawing his systems from BIOS's armor. Seeing the looks on the faces of Kirito and Minoru, and Tatsuya's expectational stare, Boot guessed what they were thinking, and said, "I don't know how he does it, either." It seemed he had hit the nail right on the head, as they all seemed rather disappointed. He quickly began explaining his abilities.

"I am linked to BIOS, and can resurrect him if he dies, or heal him if he is injured. I can also scan any data medium, analyse anything, store and fabricate objects, and detect anomalies. My eye functions as a flashlight, and I can act as a communications antenna." Along with all that, they knew that Boot could dematerialize and transfer his systems into BIOS's armor.

Finally, it was BIOS's turn. They all turned to him, for the final time, to hear what he could do.

He decided to start with the simple stuff, and work up from there. "To start, as Boot said, he can resurrect and heal me. I'm also rather strong, though that's not really an ability. For the more... unusual stuff, I can use Void light to increase the damage of my punches, though that has a cooldown, and if I kill something with that, it'll create a barrier around me. That Void light can also be used to create an unbreakable dome that gives an overshield if you walk through it, and to create magnetic grenades, which, probably since they're actually made of pure light, can explode twice. However, anything made of light has a cooldown."

Of course, Kirito had noticed something by now.

"this sounds a lot like a video game. How long are the cool downs for these abilities?"

"A minute each for Disintegration and the magnetic grenade, and five minutes for the Ward of Dawn, the barrier. They can be reduced with certain armors, though. For me, it's twenty seconds for Disintegration, three minutes for Ward of Dawn, and fifty-five seconds for the grenade."

"And you're sure you weren't sent here in your avatar from a video game?"

"Completely sure."

"Oh well. That makes no sense, but I guess it's possible."

Having discussed their individual abilities, and, in BIOS and Minoru's cases, eaten their lunches, they now decided to explore the town. On a side note, their government minder had sat at his own table across the diner, eating his own lunch, which he too had apparently missed, and therefore missed their entire conversation about their abilities. Had he heard about any of their abilities, they likely would not have been allowed so much freedom.

* * *

 **Note: This next segment will break the fourth wall. You will not miss anything important if you skip it.**

* * *

After nearly an hour of wandering around the town, the four were taking a break in a small side road, when a a boy and a girl unexpectedly appeared in front of them.

The boy wore what seemed to be a cross between a hoodie and a lab coat, in the colors blue and white. The girl was even more unusual. Her hair was a pale purple color, and she wore hair ornaments that appeared to be designed to look like d-pads from a video game controller. She had on a purple dress, with a crop-top zip-up hoodie on over it. All in all, it made for a strange sight.

They had appeared while in the middle of fighting over what appeared to be a mobile phone, but immediately stopped and looked around. The boy then started yelling at the girl.

"NEPTUNE! Look what you did this time! I've already told you not to touch my phone while I'm browsing fanfics, and you STILL did it! I don't even know which one you tapped on, so I can't figure out where we are or how to get back!"

The girl quickly retorted, saying, "Well, it's your fault for not letting me see it! If you had just handed me your phone, I wouldn't have accidentally tapped a random fanfic, and we wouldn't be having this problem."

Looking around again, the boy now seemed to notice the five people watching them. Counting Boot, it was actually six, but Boot was hidden in BIOS'S armor at the time, so the boy couldn't see him. The boy then put on an extremely uncomfortable face, before making a request: "Could you, uh... just pretend you didn't hear that?"

However, it seemed that would not happen. BIOS immediately walked up to the boy, and asked him, "You're a Dimension Traveler, right?"

The boy looked like he'd seen a ghost. "W-w-where did you even hear that term?!"

Ignoring the boy's question, BIOS pressed on. "I'll take that as a yes. What's your name, Dimension Traveler?

The boy seemed to have calmed down a little, though he was obviously still rather rattled. "Jason. That annoying girl over there," he said, pointing to the girl, "is Neptune."

"Neptune. Hmm... I think I've heard of her. She's that goddess or whatever who shows up occasionally in random worlds other than her own, right?"

"Once again, how do you know that?"

"We have dimension traveler who stops by my world on weekends. Usually has some pretty good weapons and armor to sell. We established communications with the dimension travelers after we discovered how to travel between worlds."

"Your world figured that out on their own?"

"No help from Dimension Rebels at all. We just use it to travel to a smaller, empty world so we can travel between planets faster."

"Oh, so you're from that world. I though that was just a rumor."

"No, it's not. However, we don't belong in this world. Could you send us back to our correct ones?"

The boy now seemed surprised, rather than scared. "What's this world called?"

"I believe the person we talked to said this world is called Remnant."

The girl, Neptune, now butted in. "We're still in Remnant? So we never left our story?"

Jason sighed, then began explaining what was going on. "No, we're definitely in another author's story, but their story also takes place in Remnant. We're still in Remnant, just not _our_ Remnant." He then turned back to BIOS and began another explanation. "To put it simply, yes, I am a Dimension traveler. However, this Universe is not under my jurisdiction, so I can't send you back to your own worlds. You're going to need to find this Universe's Dimension Traveler, and get them to send you back to your worlds, which should also be part of this Universe."

BIOS nodded, while the other three in his group, along with their government minder, simply stood there, confused. Seeing that at least one of them understood, Jason grabbed Neptune, scrolled through his phone for a few seconds, and finally disappeared, as though he had never been there.

* * *

 **Fourth wall break over.**

* * *

"So... Who was that?"

Isolator decided to start off the conversation with a perfectly reasonable question, prompting a simple answer from BIOS.

"A Dimension Traveler."

"A what now?"

"A Dimension Traveler. They travel between worlds, recording the histories of each. The girl is someone who simply has a tendency to get lost in other worlds."

"And how do you know so much about them, when we've never even heard of them?"

"My world uses interdimensional travel to travel faster than light. It's hard to explain. But after we discovered that, the Dimension Travelers contacted us, and now we occasionally help them out if an interdimensional fugitive enters our world."

Kirito butted in. "So, if he can transport people between worlds, couldn't he have sent us home?"

"No. Each Dimension Traveler watches over a group of worlds, referred to as a Universe. In the first place, they aren't supposed to visit Universes other than their own, but if they do, they aren't allowed to interfere with them, even if it's in order to fix problems, such as us."

Tatsuya seemed to find this phrasing strange. "What do you mean, we're problems?"

Boot finally spoke up. "We don't belong in this world. We are an aberration, a mistake, in this world. However, we can't rely on the Dimension Travelers to send us home. For four people from different worlds to end up in the same one, one that none of them belong in, someone has to have intentionally sent us here. That means that we need to find who, or what, sent us here. That's likely the only way to get home."

The four of them continued exploring the town, but none of them were really paying any attention to what was going on around them. Instead, they were all thinking over their situation, each hoping to find a solution. Suddenly, an electronic-sounding voice started speaking over the town's warning system.

"Warning: Grimm attack imminent. Please take shelter in the nearest safe house, and all Huntsmen and Huntresses report to the town wall for immediate assignment. Repeat: Grimm attack imminent. Take shelter. All Huntsmen and Huntresses report for defensive assignments."

Within moments, the four, along with their government minder, found the streets around them empty.

Tatsuya soon posed a question to the group. "What should we do? Do we try to help fight off the Grimm, or do we stay here and look for somewhere safe?"

Kirito's answer came immediately. "I'm going to fight. If you guys want to to hide in the safe house, go ahead, I won't blame you. But I can't watch another innocent person die."

BIOS, Isolator, and Tatsuya all nodded. It seemed they were going to fight, too.

Finally, the soldier who had been watching over them spoke up. "How can you be so calm about this?! You don't even have any weapons!"

At this, BIOS made a strange sound. Then the sound came again, and again, being produced with increasing frequency. Finally, he couldn't hold it back anymore, and BIOS burst out laughing. The soldier simply stared at him, incredulous.

"Hahaha! You think I would just hand over all my weapons, just because I'm told to? Hahahaha! How stupid do you think I am?"

The soldier wasn't the only one who was confused by this. Having missed their earlier conversation, he couldn't have known that they all could fight without weapons, but BIOS, who relied more on his weapons than his abilities, obviously did not have a single weapon. Even now, they could not see anywhere on his armor where one might be concealed. His armor was made up of smooth metal plates, so there was nowhere to hide even a knife.

"Kirito, you said you're good with a sword, right?"

"Yeah."

"Ever used a broadsword before?"

"Of course."

"Boot, equip heavy weapon: Young Wolf's Howl."

A broadsword appeared on BIOS's back. The hilt was wrapped with leather, and a small piece of wolf fur was tied around the upper half. The blade glowed with heat, a cool silver color at the edge, orange blending out from the fuller, and a dangerously hot yellow color at the symbol embossed at the blade's base. The symbol was of a pair of hands holding a double-bladed battleaxe, and the sword was white-hot at the point in the symbol where the hands met the battleaxe's haft. The crossguard and pommel were engraved with a simple pattern.

While the soldier stared in shock, BIOS took the sword off his back, seemingly ignoring the extreme heat that must have been radiating from it, and held it out to Kirito. Kirito, wary of the heat, was hesitant to take it, but BIOS assured him it was safe.

"The blade may appear hot, but it isn't. The glow comes from its inner flames, rather than the heat of the blade. Swing it with the intent to kill, and the blade will catch fire, but if you attack wishing to simply injure an enemy, or it is swung for practice, accidentally, or as a tool, it will act as a normal sword would. Also, slamming it against the ground will create a line of flames in the direction the sword points, which will produce an explosion if it hits something, or after it reaches about 5 meters. It will create a shield around you if you block with it, which is extra effective against fire-based attacks."

Having been given a simple explanation of how to use the sword, Kirito took it and clipped it onto his back, using the electromagnetic weapon clip there.

Finally, the soldier recovered from his shock, and cried out, "Where did you hide that?!"

Boot, being the one who was carrying it, gave a brief explanation. "I broke it down into its component quanta, then stored it as a small wafer. It's simple, really."

Kirito saw that this explanation would make no sense to most people, and simplified it. "He took it apart at a subatomic level, and stored those tiny pieces." This explanation, while mind-boggling, could at least could be understood.

The soldier, however, apparently did not see how that was possible, and had finally given up on trying to understand anything that happed around these otherworldly visitors. Overwhelmed by everything that was going on, he sat down and began to cry. It seemed he'd had a mental breakdown.

Isolator, concerned for the soldier's safety, asked whether he would be okay if they left the soldier there. Boot assured him it would be fine, but suggested they move the man somewhere out of sight, telling them it would affect the military's image if a soldier were found crying in an alleyway. Once they had moved him somewhere out of sight of the street, they took off towards the city walls.

While they were running, BIOS called out to Boot again, "Boot, equip secondary loadout." An assault rifle materialized in his hands, while a shotgun and what seemed to be some sort of railgun appeared on his back. "Hawksaw, Found Verdict, and Sleeper Simulant equipped," Boot reported.

They prepared themselves for what they might find at the wall.

* * *

It took them only a couple minutes to reach the wall. Once there, they found several teams of Huntsmen and Huntresses receiving orders from a man carrying on his back what appeared to be a cross between a Winchester rifle and a sword. Next to him stood a silver-haired girl holding a revolver with a sniper scope, a bipod, and a muzzle brake. Those weren't the only unusual weapons in the crowd. It seemed everyone had their own extremely unusual weapon, many of which appeared to be crosses between melee and ranged weapons. The four took spots near the back of the crowd.

As soon as people noticed them, whispers began spreading through the crowd: "Is that a new team?" "Why do they have Knights?" "Is that boy seriously working with a team of robots?" "Did he build that one with the rifle?" It seemed that it was rare for Atlesian Knights to appear during battles against Grimm, even when the town was under attack.

The man giving orders called for everyone's attention. Once he had it, he began explaining the defense formation. It was surprisingly simple: half the teams would defend the walls, holding off any Grimm that made it that far, while the other half would go outside the walls to keep the Grimm from reaching the walls. Finally, a call was made for volunteers to join the group outside the walls. After several minutes of discussion, Kirito and Co. found themselves the only ones with their hands raised to volunteer. It seemed this was not a very favorable job. Several other teams were quickly chosen, ending with four teams on offense and four on defense. The teams on offense jumped over the battlements and ran towards the approaching force of Grimm.

Running towards the black wave of Grimm, the fight began. Isolator controlled his breathing, activating his barrier, while Kirito drew the sword he had borrowed from BIOS. BIOS himself began firing into the horde, bullets coming in bursts. Tatsuya began repeatedly casting Decomposition, causing the Grimm to vaporize.

The other three looked at Tatsuya. "What was that?" Kirito asked.

"Decomposition. It renders objects down into their component parts, at whatever level I choose. Disassembly, down to molecules, atoms, or even quarks."

"That seems extremely overpowered."

"That is the entire point of my existence. To be overwhelmingly powerful."

"So you're..."

"A tactical magician. A weapon."

It seemed they had underestimated Tatsuya.

Finally, the two forces collided. A black wave of Grimm, versus the bright colors of the Huntsmen and Huntresses. The four otherworlders dived into the fray, killing any Grimm in their path.

Kirito ran from around, slashing at every Grimm he could. Nearly every Grimm died with a single slice from the flaming blade, and any that didn't died with another.

Tatsuya simply stood in place, casting Decomposition over and over again. With each casting, another Grimm disappeared, leaving only a blue flame, which quickly burned away.

Minoru, floating roughly three centimeters above the ground, punched any Grimm that came near him. While his form was terrible, each hit nevertheless sent a Grimm flying. Rather than hitting the Grimm, his barrier was forcing them away before they came into contact with his fist.

BIOS sprinted in, guns blazing. His rifle riddled smaller Grimm with holes, while his shotgun blew the larger ones to bits. When faced with a Deathclaw, he pulled out his railgun-looking weapon and fired a red laser from it, punching a hole in the Deathclaw's carapace. It seemed the weapon was actually some sort of laser rifle.

The other three offensive tams paused to stare at them, before realizing that they were in a battle and returning to the fight. It seemed that while their teamwork left something to be desired, each one of them had enough individual fighting fighting prowess to surprise even teams of hardened veterans.

Despite that, none of them were infallible. Several minutes into the fight, BIOS died. While he was distracted fighting an Ursa, a giant Nevermore swooped out of the sky, biting off everything from the waist up. Strangely, there was no blood, but it was a gruesome enough sight even without it. As BIOS's legs faded away, like shadows, Boot appeared where he died. "Somebody get over here!"

Isolator was first to react. He ran over to Boot, calling out, "What happened?"

As soon as he got there, Boot yelled at him, "QUICK, POKE ME!"

"Huh?"

"Poke me!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

Isolator finally listened and, as ordered, poked Boot right in the eye. Immediately, Boot dematerialized, and BIOS took his place. It seemed this was Boot's resurrection function. With a quick word of thanks, BIOS ran back into the crowd of Grimm.

* * *

After several hours filled largely by combat and Tatsuya using Regrowth, another underestimated spell, to heal any injured fighters, nearly all of the Grimm were gone. Luckily, the Grimm corpses disappeared after a while, so the battlefield wasn't cluttered with the bodies of the hundreds of Grimm that had been killed. Just as the last few Grimm were being rounded up and eliminated, screams were heard from the forest. The team that had been cleaning up the Grimm left in the forest ran out. Two of the team's members were badly injured, and were being carried by their teammates.

One of them, in an obvious panic, screamed out, "ARMA GIGAS!" A few moments later, something burst out of the forest behind them, carrying an enormous sword. It was a giant suit of armor. Seemingly built for someone twice the scale of a normal human, it was a giant suit of Chinese-style armor. Interestingly enough, it wasn't made of metal, leather, or any other normal armor material. Rather, it was made up of extremely thick panels of what appeared to be paper coated in shellac or lacquer. Amazingly, this paper armor, while unable to deflect bullets, was enough to stop them, and it was able to stop any bladed weapons used against it. The Arma Gigas was even using its sword to block the few laser weapons being used by the other teams.

Immediately, the other three teams began running away. Tatsuya stopped one of them to ask what an Arma Gigas is.

"A Geist possessing a suit of armor." With this hurried explanation, the Huntress pulled away and continued running. It seemed she was too terrified to question why an Atlesian Knight was acting so human.

In just seconds, the other teams were gone, leaving Tatsuya, Kirito, BIOS, and Isolator the only ones still standing in the field. Soon, the Arma Gigas reached them, immediately swinging its sword horizontally towards them them. All of them jumped, but BIOS was too late, and got sliced in half at the waist again. The battle was only beginning.

* * *

 **A/N: To start, thank you to AnbuNaruto12, Fiction of Worlds, Primecore, Veldoraa, dickythamrin077, flo463, Disabled-doctor, and sartiel for following and/or favoriting this story.**

 **Sorry for ending this chapter on a cliffhanger. I haven't thought of a way for them to beat the Arma Gigas yet. I'm open to suggestions. Until I have a way for the Arma Gigas to die, I'm going to work on a cover for this story.**

 **I'm thinking about adding some 'little helper' characters, like Yui (SAO), since I gave BIOS a helper character. Thoughts?**

 **Team RWBY will likely be introduced next chapter, or chapter 4 if the battle against the Arma Gigas takes too long. I'd like to have them work together with the 'otherworld team'. (Oh. I also need a name for the team. Almost forgot about that.)**

 **Sorry if I'm asking for too many suggestions. I am a terribly indecisive person.**

 **Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!**

* * *

 **This chapter was finished June 27, 2018**


	4. Chapter 3: Confront Battle

**A/N:** **Sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I tried to stop procrastinating, but kept putting it off. (I know, bad joke.) Amazingly, I still got notifications that new people were following this story weeks after chapter 2 released.**

 **I'm going to begin working on another story alongside this one, starting probably after chapter four releases. The working title is Lost Time, and it's going to give a bit of back story for my OC, BIOS. Hopefully, it'll be received well.**

* * *

Not even five seconds into the battle, and BIOS was already dead. The fight was not going well.

Just moments ago, an Arma Gigas made of paper had appeared out of the forest. It had stopped any and all attacks launched at it, sending all the other Huntresses and Huntsmen fleeing in the face of a seemingly invulnerable enemy. Within seconds, the battlefield had emptied, and Tatsuya, Kirito, Isolator, and BIOS were left behind to fight the giant animated suit of armor. Rushing towards them, it had swung its sword, slicing BIOS in half. Just like before, his corpse had faded away, leaving Boot in his place, calling out, "Guardian down!" Now that the Arma Gigas had made the first move, the remaining three entered the battle.

There was no need to communicate. They each had enough experience working with teams to know their roles without being told. Isolator acted as a tank, blocking the attacks of the Arma Gigas with his barrier, while Kirito ran to revive BIOS. Tatsuya began to repeatedly fire off Decomposition at the living armor, and continued his work of healing any severe injuries. Finally, BIOS, back from the dead yet again, began working together with Kirito as the frontline offensive.

Despite their best efforts, the Arma Gigas simply would not die. BIOS fired round after round at it, but they all got caught in its strange paper armor. Eventually, he even pulled his laser cannon, the Sleeper Simulant, off his back and began firing that at it, but it barely even scratched it.

Meanwhile, Kirito whaled on it with his sword. Hacking and slashing at it with the heavy weapon, he managed to damage the Arma Gigas slightly, but the thick armor absorbed the attacks before they could pierce through. The flames that rose from the blade when it was swung did little damage. Since they only appeared when the sword was swung, they disappeared too quickly after each hit to catch the paper on fire.

Even Tatsuya was having trouble doing any damage to the monster. His decomposition, an extremely powerful weapon against other Grimm, could do almost nothing against it. With each casting, he only destroyed a single piece of paper, and he had no other attacks.

Minoru had it worst of them all. His punches did nothing, even strengthened by his barrier as they were. Since all he could do was defend in this situation, he was getting thrown like a ragdoll every time he stopped the enemy's attacks from hitting the others. Even if he was protected by his barrier, he would likely become exhausted quickly and be unable to protect the other three.

At this rate, they would be driven to exhaustion, then killed when the became too slow to dodge the Arma Gigas's blade. They needed a better plan. The four gained some distance from the enemy, then gathered together once the Grimm lost sight of them and began looking around.

"We need to come up with a plan quickly, before it comes after us again," Isolator began. "I can't do any damage to it at all. Is that the same for everyone?"

"Decomposition can only remove one layer of its armor at a time. It seems the armor is made up of many sheets of paper held together by the Grimm inside, meaning it isn't considered a single object in the Eidos." Tatsuya has already figured out why his attacks did so little.

"Being made of paper should give it a weakness to fire, but the flames on this sword go out so quickly that it can't catch. The sword itself can't cut through any more than the first two centimeters of paper."

"Bullets are just as ineffective. Even my Sleeper Simulant can't do any substantial damage when it hits." The Arma Gigas had somehow managed to block several shots from BIOS's laser rifle with the flat of its blade.

"If we need to use fire, a torch might work," Isolator suggested.

Kirito quickly pointed out the flaw. "A torch would just bounce off if we threw it, and if we tried jamming it in between the plates of armor, it would go out. Paper can smother a fire, you know. We'd need something that could stick to it instead, something like napalm."

"Why does it need to stick to it? We could just make a large fire underneath it."

Everyone looked at BIOS like he was crazy. """How would we do that?!"""

"Give me five minutes. I'll get it done."

It sounded like a joke, but BIOS didn't seem like the type of person who would mess around like that during a fight, or at all, for that matter. With thaGigas, t in mind, Tatsuya, Kirito, and Isolator ran back towards the Arma Gigas to act as a distraction. After a few seconds, though, they were surprised to see BIOS fighting alongside them. When Tatsuya called out to him about it, he replied that he didn't need five minutes to prepare, just that it would take five minutes before he could do it.

* * *

After about three minutes, the Arma Gigas's attacks sped up, and it began targeting them one at a time. Isolator was first.

The Grimm repeatedly slashed at him with its sword. After several swipes, Isolator finally failed to dodge, and was sent flying by the sword's extreme inertia. He immediately got up but was thrown through the air again when the Arma Gigas kicked him. This time, he slammed into a tree and fell to the ground. The impact had cracked the tree's trunk, and it tipped over toward him, pinning Minoru to the ground.

With their defensive tank out of the way, the Arma Gigas was now free to attack Tatsuya. It rushed him, moving far faster they had expected from its large frame.

The scene seemed surreal. None of the them had uttered any war cries, and they had barely spoken since the start of the battle. Meanwhile, Arma Gigas itself was incapable of making any noises. Tatsuya's spell, Decomposition, made no sound as it activated, and the forest had been silent since the appearance of the giant suit of armor. Kirito was too far away to attack the Arma Gigas, and BIOS had stopped shooting in order to avoid friendly fire. The only thing that could be heard was the heavy footsteps of the Arma Gigas. It seemed strange, seeing the the Grimm sprinting toward a human less than half its height, nobody attacking it despite it being the only target in sight. Like a scene from a movie, when the hero sprints across a battlefield to fight the villain. Except in this case, the roles were reversed.

An angry voice suddenly came over their comms units, bringing them back down to earth. "Don't just stand there, help him!" At Boot's voice, all of them, except Minoru, who was still stuck under the tree, began running.

BIOS began giving orders over the comms. "Tatsuya, it's been enough time, lure it over towards Kirito! Kirito, I need you to restrain the Arma Gigas. If you can get your sword around it's neck, it should stand in one place while it tries to get you off." Even rushed or yelling, his voice retained the same blank monotone as always, only changing the volume.

Immediately, Tatsuya began sprinting directly towards the Arma Gigas. As soon as he reached it, it swung its sword in a broad sweep, trying to leave no escape for him. He quickly leaped over the sword and continued running. Just before he collided with the monster's leg, he strafed to the side, avoiding it. Tatsuya was now behind the Arma Gigas, running towards Kirito.

Having lost its prey, the Arma Gigas paused for a moment, before turning and beginning its chase. It barreled after Tatsuya, its feet shaking the earth with each step. While Tatsuya had a head start, it wasn't by much, and the Arma Gigas was gaining on him. Luckily, it seemed that Tatsuya would reach Kirito before the Arma Gigas caught up to him. Suddenly, the Arma Gigas leaped into the air, before slamming down onto the ground directly behind Tatsuya. The attack failed to hit him directly, but it was close enough behind him to throw him into the air.

Tatsuya landed next to Kirito, and immediately stood up. Luckily, his robot body, built for combat, was tough enough to survive the fall. Soon, the Arma Gigas caught up to them. This was where the plan went awry.

As soon as it reached them, the Arma Gigas changed its target from Tatsuya to Kirito. Not expecting this, Kirito wasn't prepared to dodge the stab of the Arma Gigas's sword, and it plunged into his abdomen. Immediately, Kirito began struggling to remove it, but it was no use.

The Arma Gigas lifted its sword into the air, then swung it in a wide arc, using the centrifugal force the throw Kirito off of the blade. He was sent flying, and landed in the dirt several feet away. Miraculously, he managed to stand back up, despite the gaping hole in his body. He immediately began running back towards the Arma Gigas.

Kirito's robot body was resilient, but it was obviously damaged too badly to continue functioning for much longer. It was leaking hydraulic fluid, and was running solely on its backup power. The main battery had been punctured, causing it leak corrosive battery acid. Soon, the machine would be unable to move, and would begin to shut down shortly after. However, for now it would work.

Kirito quickly reached Arma Gigas, and immediately began climbing it. Somehow, he had managed to hold onto his sword, and he now used it to fend off the hands of the Arma Gigas as it tried to remove him from its body. Upon reaching its head, he put his sword to its neck, and held onto it. He was now locked in place on its back. Because of the shape of its armor, the Grimm couldn't reach to where he was an pull him off.

Kirito quickly found that he could stop the Arma Gigas from moving by yanking its head back and forcing it to look upwards, and began using this to hold it in place. It was now up to BIOS to finish the fight.

BIOS, seeing that Kirito had the Arma Gigas restrained, began to run towards it. Once he reached a distance of around ten meters, he leaped into the air, and began floating upwards. Small blue particles began appearing below him, quickly flying downwards. This was BIOS's jump ability, Lift. Using Lift, BIOS floated up several meters, and moved closer to the Arma Gigas. Suddenly, flames appeared around his hand, and with the sound of an anvil being struck, a small warhammer appeared in his hand.

The hammer was made from a single solid piece of metal, and had a relief of a bird of prey's face, likely a hawk or eagle, molded into the pointed end of the hammer's head. The face of the hammer was covered with several large ridges, which gave it a zigzag shape when seen from the side, and it glowed with an inner flame, just like the sword Kirito was using.

Still floating in the air, BIOS threw the hammer. It flew through the air, spinning end over end, before slamming into the ground below him. On impact, the hammer exploded, leaving behind a circle of burning, scorched earth.

BIOS dropped to the ground, into the circle of flames. Another hammer appeared in BIOS's hand, and was thrown at the Grimm's feet, leaving behind another circle of scorched earth and flames. Again, a hammer appeared, and again, it was thrown at the Arma Gigas.

After about a dozen hammers had been thrown, BIOS's aura of flames disappeared, and he stopped throwing the warhammers. The scorched earth, however, stayed. No matter where the Arma Gigas tried to move, Kirito stopped it, forcing it to stay in the flames rising from the ground.

With the forced exposure to the flames, the paper armor began to catch fire. Once the flames had caught, Kirito jumped off. Soon, the Arma Gigas was covered by a raging fire. Just before the flames reached its head, a black silhouette flew out of the armor and floated into the air. This was the Gheist Grimm that had been controlling the armor.

As soon as the Gheist left the armor, it collapsed into the fire, sending up a plume of smoke and ash, obscuring the Gheist from view. Suddenly, a bright purple light flashed from inside the smoke. That was Tatsuya's unique spell, Decomposition.

With the Arma Gigas dead, they could now tend to Kirito and Minoru. Immediately, Tatsuya used Regrowth to repair Kirito's body, and the three of them headed over to the fallen tree. Working together, they lifted off of Minoru, then they all sat down, leaning against the tree.

Soon, other Huntsmen and Huntresses arrived. Upon seeing the smoldering remains of the Arma Gigas, they let out a cheer and began praising the otherworlders. They were more than happy to give the four a hand getting back to the city.

* * *

As soon as they entered the city, they found a square of Atlas soldiers waiting to arrest them.

They were led back to the base, and, while not treated badly, they were confined to a spare dorm room for the time being.

After several hours of sitting around and waiting, they were bored out of their skulls. BIOS seemed to be at least mildly interested in standing guard, but his emotionless voice told otherwise when he suddenly spoke. "Motion tracker's showing movement outside outside the window."

Not a moment later, a young girl slid into the room through the window. Phased might have been a better word to describe it, as she slipped the the solid plate-glass window like it was water. She was wearing pajamas, and had a pillow held under her arm. Strangest of all, she looked to be around ten years old, eleven at most. "You seem bored. But don't worry, Magical Girl Nemurin is here to make you happy!" Her bright tone seemed almost out of place in the bland, unadorned room.

The four of them were on their guard, but the girl, Nemurin, ignored that and kept talking. "Since you four seemed so bored, I pulled each of you into this dream as you fell asleep. Now we can do stuff all night long, and you'll get a good night's rest!"

""Uhmmm..."" Kirito and Minoru were extremely apprehensive. It seemed like a pretty sketchy dream so far; Cute loli appears, says they can 'do stuff' all night. It almost seemed like the start of a hentai.

"Yup! I have Chess, Connect 4, Sunken Treasure, Spy Hunter, and any other game you can think of! If you can think of it we can play it!"

Reassured that they weren't pedophiles, Kirito and Minoru visibly relaxed.

They spent the rest of the night sharing a collective dream, playing any board game or video game they could think of. Although, taking into account the apparent age of Nemurin, they avoided any games that would be considered innappropriate for children.

The next morning, they woke refreshed, and soon realized that they had, in fact, shared a dream.

* * *

That afternoon, General Ironwood called them to his office. It seemed he did not approve of their actions, despite the fact that they had saved the city and not taken the chance to escape.

When they arrived, they were told to sit down in the seats arranged in front of the general's desk. He was obviously in a bad mood, and angrily glared at them as they entered.

"We had an agreement! We agreed that if the four of you handed over your weapons and stayed where the guards could see you, you would be allowed to roam the city. But! Not only did you not hand over all of your weapons, you left the city! Not only did you leave the city, but you left your escort behind and ran off into the forest! What part of the agreement did you not break?!"

Isolator quickly found a loophole, though. "We did hand over all of our weapons. The four of us were unarmed when we left."

"Bullshit! One of you must managed to hide the weapons!"

"Where would we hide a sword that's a meter and a half long?"

This stopped the general short. "Oh... Right." He paused for moment and calmed himself down, then continued in a much more civil tone. "In that case, where did you get those weapons from? Those aren't the kind of weapons you can just find on the street."

"There are five of us," came the matter-of-fact reply from BIOS.

"I find that hard to believe."

Seeing an appropriate time to introduce himself, Boot materialized himself. "It's true. I'm Boot, BIOS's assistant and sidekick."

Ironwood was unimpressed. "Is this a joke? Boot and BIOS?"

"Not a joke. Although we hear that pretty often."

"Well, then, back to the matter at hand. Boot hid the weapons, right? How?"

Rather than giving him a straightforward answer, Boot materialized a large chunk of what appeared to be iron.

The general seemed taken aback, but took it in stride. "I guess that will make confiscating your weapons rather difficult. In that case, I will return your weapons. Now, while I did call you here over that, there is a second reason. I recently made contact with an old friend of mine, who happens to be in need of some help. Traveling with him is a Huntress who happens to be related to one of my top agents. They, along with the other Huntsmen and Huntresses in their group, tend to get into trouble more often than most."

Kirito stopped him there. "So you want us to keep them out of trouble? We're trained fighters, not babysitters."

Ironwood scoffed. "Keep them out of trouble? That's impossible. No, I want you to make sure they get out of any trouble alive."

"So, combat roles, right?"

"Correct. Are you interested?"

"Well, it might help us find out a way home. What do you guys think?"

Seeing the other three nod their assent, the general smiled slightly. "Good. You leave at dawn."

* * *

 **A/N:** **To start, thanks to everyone who has favorited and followed this story. I won't make a list of names, since I'd have to specify who favorited, who followed, and who did both, but you guys know who you are, and I'm thankful to all of you.**

 **Once again, sorry this chapter took so long. I would have liked to add the meeting with team RWBY in this chapter, but this chapter would likely have taken another two or three weeks if I did that, so it'll be in chapter 4.**

 **Some of you may have noticed that these first three chapters have had cameos by characters from series other than RWBY, SAO, The Irregular, or The Isolator. These will continue for the foreseeable future, and they will be important later.**


	5. Chapter 4: Nightmares and New Places

**A/N:** **I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long. It was supposed to have been done a few weeks ago, and I had been just a few lines away from finishing the chapter, but I just couldn't stop procrastinating, so it ended up taking me almost a month to finish the last few paragraphs.**

 **With this chapter out (finally), I'm going to start releasing my other series, Lost Time, which will likely end up having its name changed several times before the first chapter makes it out.**

 **P.S. Some of the stuff in this chapter felt a little forced. I think I probably overdid it trying to fit all my ideas in.**

* * *

Kirito was sitting in the amphitheater on the first floor of the floating castle, Aincrad.

Obviously, he was dreaming, since Aincrad had been destroyed several months ago, when he defeated Heathcliff, the creator of SAO, on the seventy-fifth floor. It seemed this dream was based on his memories of the amphitheater. However, it was not any specific memory.

The first thing he noticed was that every seating space in the amphitheater was occupied. Not once while he was in Aincrad had he seen more than half the seats filled.

Second, he didn't recognize anyone in the amphitheater. He had read once in an article that the random people seen in dreams were really just people the dreamer had seen but didn't remember. Normally, that would explain why he didn't recognize any of the people there, but these people were not easily forgotten.

Across the amphitheater, he spotted a small girl. Her long black hair hung down past her waist, and was draped across the stone bench. She looked to be around years old, and wore an orange hooded sweater. She wore the hood down, revealing a large metallic disk attached to her head, along with a metal object in the shape of a cat's ear attached on each side of her head, just behind her jaw. With such unusual features, she would have been hard to miss.

Soon, a figure walked onto the stage.

* * *

Tatsuya was sitting in one of the seats in the briefing room of the military base in Okinawa. Looking around, it almost perfectly matched his memories from that night three years previous, when he had drove off the invasion force from the Great Asian Alliance. The only difference he noticed was the number of seats and the people sitting in the seats

He quickly realized the he was dreaming.

Most noticeable was the people. Not a single uniform or rank insignia could be found on any of the people there. Some of them, such the boy he spotted a few rows back, seemed like they wouldn't fit at all in the civilized world.

the boy's entire outfit was smudged with dirt and black ash. He wore a long-sleeve blue shirt, with an unusually designed leather vest over it. Around his neck was a piece of red cloth, worn as a makeshift scarf. Over his dark brown pants were a pair of leather boots that rose to just above his knees, with straps around his ankles and just above his knees acting as primitive seals. Similarly, straps on his wrists and above his elbows closed off the openings of his two pairs of gloves. Underneath, he wore long gloves that could also protect his arms, with a pair of simple work gloves over them. Most of his face was hidden by his cloth dust mask and scratched goggles, but what little could be seen was pale from lack of exposure to sunlight. In stark contrast to his skin, the eyes seen behind the lenses of his goggles had jet-black irises. Strangely, his pure white hair, which highlighted him in the crowd, was completely clean, despite the dirt that covered the rest of him.

After watching the boy for a while, Tatsuya continued looking around the dreamscape. More indicators that the scene wasn't real popped out at him: The room was slightly larger than the real one, the flooring had been replaced with shag carpeting, and several other minor differences.

While Tatsuya was looking around the room, picking out discrepancies with reality, a figure walked up to the podium.

* * *

Utsugi Minoru, the Isolator, was sitting in the main room of the Syndicate's headquarters.

He found himself huddled up under the kotatsu. Next to him, a young girl was also taking advantage of the heated table. It was hard to tell, since only her head and shoulders peeked out from underneath the kotatsu's blanket, but she was wearing a purple sailor uniform. Unexpectedly, she turned her head toward him, making it possible for him to see her bright red eyes. Those eyes, together with her colorless white hair, which was threaded through a crown on her head, marked her as an albino.

"Bro...ther? Where, are you. Brother?"

Before Minoru could ask what she was talking about, a voice called out from nearby, "I'm over here." The girl looked over toward the source of the voice, and visibly relaxed. It seemed she had found her brother.

Minoru visually explored the room, noting the large number of people packed into the room that normally held, at most, six people.

A few minutes later, a figure walked into the center of the circle.

* * *

BIOS was sitting in the seat of his jumpship, floating in low orbit above Pluto. Looking out the front viewscreen, he could see a small fleet of other ships surrounding his. Down below, the frozen nitrogen of the dwarf planet's surface gleamed darkly from what little light completed the four and a half hour journey from the sun.

Despite what had happened to him and his team here, BIOS showed no signs of fear, anxiety, or even surprise. Boot, on the other hand, was trembling, an unusual motion for a machine.

Suddenly, a section of the instrument panel lit up, and a screen informed them that a video communication channel had opened. The display then changed to a video feed from one of the other ships, showing a teenage boy. The boy wore a yellow t-shirt, printed with the words "I PPL" on the front. His black hair stood up in natural spikes, and he had oddly colored reddish-orange eyes.

After examining BIOS for a moment, the boy spoke. "You seem rather powerful. Wanna join my group?"

BIOS immediately shot down the idea. "We already have a team. Besides, you don't seem very useful in a fight."

"Well, that may be true, but I'm skilled in other areas. I've already deduced that, despite your appearance, you are human. I can also tell that you think very little of me because I'm only a human, and that you prefer to solve problems with hard words first, violence second, and diplomacy last."

"True. But reading people won't save you from a murderous monster from another dimension."

"A what? What do yo—" His voice cut out as BIOS closed the communication channel.

Several minutes later, a new video channel opened, and a figure walked into view on the screen.

* * *

The same figure could be seen by Kirito, Tatsuya, Minoru, and BIOS. It had an asymmetrical, faceted body, like a rough sculpture of a person cut from a single gemstone.

However, unlike a gemstone, this creature was grotesque. Each of the planes that made up its body displayed the features of a different person, and every few moments, one would fade to black, before lightening again to display a different person's features. Several major features, such as the eyes, were bisected, creating a rather disturbing effect when the features were in different positions on the two faces. Its limbs each had multiple skin tones, and would occasionally show horrifically mutilated body parts. The first time one such area appeared, several people gasped in shock, while a few could be heard puking.

The once everyone had gotten over their shock, the creature began speaking. As he spoke, his voice occasionally changed, likely because the section containing its voice box was changing. "Welcome, everyone, to the world of Remnant! Since you are all scattered around the planet, without any way of coordinating, let alone gathering, I have instead taken the liberty of bringing you all together by linking your dreams together.

"Because this linked dream is meant for meetings, it has changed your dreams to be of whatever meeting place you have the most vivid memories of. Each of you will, of course see yourselves in a different place, but you will all see me, and each other, in appropriate locations for your dream.

"To begin with, I suppose I should introduce myself. I have no true name, but you may call me Anthropos." Those who knew the meaning of the Greek word translated for those who didn't, and soon everyone knew: the creature had told them to call it 'People'.

"Now, allow me to explain why you are here. Each of you is a powerful person in your own world. Some of you are impossibly powerful. Some are nearly invulnerable. Some can resurrect themselves, others have superpowers. A select few are stupidly lucky. An even smaller number are intelligent enough to influence world events. One of you has enough determination and willpower to thwart death." With that last sentence, Anthropos locked eyes with Kirito.

"So, with that in mind, I've designed a game for you all. The rules are simple: You may not impede each other's progress, and you may not attack or cause the death of any of this world's residents. Those who break these rules will find themselves missing one extremity per infraction, starting with fingers and toes, and you _will_ bleed. A lot." This statement sent a wave of murmurs through assembled people.

After a few moments, one brave soul challenged the statement. "I call bullshit! It's not like you can always be watching us!"

Anthropos, however, did not show any reaction to the accusation. Either she was used to bluffing, or she was telling the truth. His voice did not waver as he countered. "You are free to test it, but I will not be held responsible for your injuries. Consider yourself warned." She punctuated this with a sharp glare towards the person who had challenged him.

"Now then, where was I? Ah, that's right. Your objective is simple: Kill me." Anthropos paused for a moment, waiting for the talking to die down. Once it did, he continued. "To be honest, I've gotten rather bored of watching you humans go off on adventures. It's similar to a show or play; Once you've seen it enough times, you know exactly what will happen, and it loses its fun. However, you regain interest if you see it from a different view. No matter how boring you find something, it's still interesting to see how it's made. So, I decided to become part of the adventure.

"Now that you know why you're here and what you'll be doing, are there any questions?"

Immediately, somebody raised their hand. "What happens if we die?"

Anthropos thought for a moment, then replied, "I'd prefer it if nobody died. If any of you end up critically injured, to the point that you are in danger of dying permanently, you will be healed fully and returned home. However, should you die before you can be healed, your remains will be returned to your home dimension and placed in the care of the appropriate people. Anything else?"

"How long will we be here? I have a kingdom to run." This time, it was the boy BIOS had talked to.

"Ah! Very good question. I forget to tell you: Time passes differently here. While I can't tell you exactly how long you'll be missing from your world, since it's different for each of you, the smallest differential is one month here equates to about one week there. I believe the greatest one was one month here being a few microseconds there. So, at most, you'll be gone a week for every month here. Does that answer your question?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, next question, then."

Kirito stood up. "You said you want us to kill you. What will happen to you then?"

The whispers this time we're all to the effect of, 'Anthropos will be dead. What else would happen?' However, It seemed that wasn't true. "Well, as some of you already know, not everyone stops living when they die. Resurrection, multiple bodies, necromancy, reincarnation, and, as I mentioned earlier, simply deciding not to be dead. There are many ways to escape the endless black abyss of nothingness that you call the afterlife. In my case, I have multiple bodies, so killing one won't be a problem.

"Any more questions?" She paused for a moment, and when she was sure there were no more, she continued. "Good. I suppose this meeting is over, then. We will have meetings like this once a week. If anyone thinks of another question, you can ask it next time. Until next time!" He clapped his hands twice, and everyone saw the people around them start disappearing, seats that had been added to fit everyone vanished, and, for those in closed spaces, the rooms shrank back to the proper size.

Just moments before Anthropos disappeared, she called out, "By the way, due to the way this dream creates meeting spaces, you'll have to relive whatever memory you're meeting in!"

* * *

Kirito, Tatsuya, Minoru, and BIOS woke up all at the same time. Looking around, they found they were back in their cabin aboard the airship.

The night before, General Ironwood had sent someone to let them know that there was an airship waiting to take them to Haven, where they would meet up with... someone. So far, they hadn't been told who.

Since they didn't have any belongings to pack, they had left immediately, following the general's man to the base's airpad, where they boarded the waiting ship.

After taking a quick look around the ship, which was rather small, they headed to their cabin to get some sleep. While Kirito and Tatsuya did not get fatigued due to their robot bodies, they had human minds, and suffered from the same mental exhaustion as anyone else.

However, they had ended up instead at that strange meeting with Anthropos, then been made to relive some of their worst memories.

They all climbed out of their bunks, and, after silently agreeing to talk later, made their way toward the cockpit. As they stepped into the room, the pilot, a young man in a white jumpsuit and black vest, wearing a white helmet, spoke. "We're almost there. Got about an hour of flying left. Take a look outside."

Looking out the side window, they saw the sea below them and, floating above it, hundreds of rocks covered in black crystals. "The gravity dust in these rocks makes them float. That makes them a great hiding spot for Lancers." It sounded as though the pilot had dealt with them before. "There's even a Queen Lancer here. If we run into it, you'd better have good enough aim to hit it... better than that girl." The last few words were said under his breath, almost spitefully.

"Honestly, I didn't want to go through here, especially after what happened last time, but going around would take almost a day longer."

"Don't worry. If anything happens, we can take care of it. Besides, these rocks don't just hide the Lancers. They hide us, too."

The pilot took a deep breath. "Yeah. You're right. I shouldn't worry so much."

"We'll leave you to your flying." And with that, they left the cockpit and returned to their cabin.

* * *

As they walked, they started discussing the events of the previous night. "I think we can agree that we all saw about the same thing," Kirito opened. The other three nodded. "So, then, should we... talk about the dream after?"

"Um... sure." Minoru seemed apprehensive, but was the first to agree.

Tatsuya thought it would be a good idea, and nodded.

Finally, Boot commented, "It would be useful to know more about each other."

"I'll go first, then," Kirito said, as they entered their room. "For me, we were sitting in the amphitheater in a Virtual Reality game. After everyone disappeared, I had to relive the first boss battle of the game, and the first time I saw someone die."

"Someone dying in a game was that traumatic for you?"

"It wasn't just a game. With Full-Dive VR, you use a headset that sends input directly to your brain. The man who created the headset had also built the game, and he made so that it was impossible to leave the game until it was beaten. If you died in the game, lost connection for too long, had your headset removed, or the headset ran out of battery, it would use a pulse of microwave radiation to fry your brain. Out of nearly ten thousand players, only a little over six thousand survived. It took two years to escape."

"That's... That's horrible."

"Anyway," Kirito continued, "it's over now. What about you guys?"

Tatsuya went second. "My dream was of the invasion of Okinawa, 3 years ago. We had been on a family vacation, when the Great Asian Alliance attacked. Soldiers got into the military base where we were taking shelter, and they shot my sister. I ended up joining the military and helped drive off the invaders." As always, he spoke in a dispassionate, disconnected tone. However, when he got to the part about his sister, anger seemed to flash across his face for a moment.

"Wait. Three years ago? That would have made you..."

"I was ten years old at the time."

"Joining the military at ten years old..."

"It was my choice. Do either of you want to go next?" The question was directed at BIOS and Minoru.

"I will." Surprisingly, it was BIOS who stepped forward. Usually, he was the last to speak.

"My memory was a bit... long."

"How long?"

"A bit over three centuries. The meeting place I saw was in low orbit over Pluto. After the meeting ended, I went back through my memories of losing my entire team, and the three hundred years I spent trapped outside of the time stream. I've been looking for a way to get them back since then." There seemed to be a hint of sadness and regret in his voice, though it was hard to tell under his helmet. However, it was only a hint, little enough that they might have imagined it.

The only one left was Minoru. Despite being the first to agree to talk, he was the last to actually do so. "Well, compared to that, mine is a bit tame... I had to remember the time that one of my teammates almost died. We were on a mission to sneak into one of our enemies' safehouses, and we got caught. We ended up getting stuck in a concrete block for a few hours, and she tried to get us out by killing herself."

"By killing herself? How would that have helped?"

"She's a Jet Eye, like me. When we die, the eye escapes back into space by moving straight upwards at really high speeds, and it burns a hole through anything in its way. We call it an Exodus Event. She wanted to use the Exodus Event to make a hole in the concrete that I could escape or call for help through." By now, Minoru had a horribly sad expression on his face. They could all tell he thought it was his fault.

Boot materialized, saying, "Well, from the way you're talking, it sounds like she's still alive. That means you must have done something right, and tried to save her. It's not your fault if you couldn't stop her."

Minoru forced a smile. "Thanks. Everyone else told me the same thing, but it helps a lot to hear some sort of reasoning behind it. Makes it seem less like false comfort."

Boot looked around at them all. "This probably dredged up some bad memories. How about we relax for the rest of the flight? We have about half an hour."

* * *

A little over half an hour later, the pilot's voice came on over the intercom. " _We are now on final approach to Haven. Landing in five minutes._ " True to his word, the airship set down on the landing pad five minutes later, and the door opened.

As they stepped outside, they took in the scenery. The city had been built in a series of deep valleys, full of beautiful, emerald-green plants. The tall, Oriental-style buildings clung to the sides of the cliffs, and simple bridges made of an unusual red wood spanned the small stream at the bottom of the valley.

"The general said that we're looking for someone with a cane, but looks too young to need one. That'll be hard to—" Kirito was interrupted by a shout from the pilot.

"You! How the hell did you survive that crash?!" The pilot was yelling at a teenage girl in a blue and white dress. "And where did you go?! You just up and walked away? It took me _five days_ to get out of that forest!"

"Well, _sorry_ for getting dragged off by bandits without looking for you first! You think that crash didn't cause problems for me, too?"

The four watched as the girl and the pilot squared up, yelling in each other's faces.

* * *

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang were waiting with Oscar/Ozpin at the airfield.

General Ironwood had made a call to Weiss's scroll earlier that day, asking to speak to Ozpin. Oscar had handed control over to Ozpin, and allowed him to take take the call. Several minutes later, Ozpin announced that the general had sent a group of Huntsmen to join them, and that he and Team RWBY would go to meet Ironwood's team.

Now, Oscar was relaying information from Ozpin. "He says the group we're looking for is made up of a boy about my age, a person who looks like a robot, and two—" Oscar broke off suddenly as someone started yelling angrily. It was a small airfield, with little noise, so the loud shouting drew a lot of attention.

The five of them immediately turned towards the source of the yelling to see a man in an Atlesian pilot's uniform walking toward them. "How the hell did you survive that crash?! And where did you go?! You just up and walked away? It took me five days to get out of that forest!"

Weiss, while surprised to see him, quickly grew angry with the verbal abuse he was heaping on her. "Well, _sorry_ for getting dragged off by bandits without looking for you first! You think that crash didn't cause problems for me, too?"

"Um... Shouldn't we stop them?" Oscar voiced his concern as Weiss and the pilot argued.

Unsurprisingly, Yang was treating it as a show. "We _should~,_ but this is too entertaining to stop."

"But what if they start a fight?"

"Relax. Weiss yells a lot, but she wouldn't start a fight in public."

And that was true. Suddenly, a gunshot echoed across the airfield

* * *

The girl in white and the pilot continued arguing, slowly moving away from the original topic and towards simple insult-flinging. They were planning to just wait for them to finish blowing off steam, but the pilot suddenly reached for the holster at his hip.

Before they could stop him, a gunshot rang out. Everyone froze. The bullet had hit the girl directly in the chest, and she fell backward from the impact. As the stared, wide-eyed, the flattened bullet hit the ground.

Before the pilot could fire another shot, Tatsuya launched a Decomposition spell at his handgun, causing the weapon the fall apart. As the disassembled firearm fell from his hand, BIOS and Kirito grabbed the pilot, restraining him with his arms behind his back. Finally, Minoru rushed over to the girl on the ground.

"Are you okay?" She looked fine, but he wanted to be sure.

"I'm fine." She let him help her up, then turned toward her companions as they came running over.

"Weiss!" the girl in red called out. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yes, Ruby, I'm fine," replied the girl in white—Weiss. "Although it almost broke through my Aura. That was much stronger than a normal dust round."

The girl in black—were those cat ears on her head?—seemed to think for a moment, then walked over to the parts on the ground. Leaning down, she picked out a bullet from the pile, and looked closely at it. "These bullets are solid metal. They're practically useless against Grimm."

BIOS cut in here. "It's likely an anti-personnel round, meant to focus the impact on a single point. That makes it pierce armor more easily. It's likely for fighting off humans who try to steal his cargo, but that seemed like he was aiming to kill."

Hearing this, the girl in yellow turned to the pilot, and her hair seemed to burst into flames. Enraged, she drew back her arm to punch him, but—

"Yang." A young boy stopped her. "If you attack him, it will make you no better than he is. Do you _want_ a repeat of the incident at the Vytal Festival?"

Yang stopped. "But this is different! Everyone saw him attack first!"

"But now he's defenseless. His gun is gone, and he's being restrained. Attacking someone while they can't fight back is no different from attacking without provocation."

Yang took a deep breath to calm down, then looked at the ground. "Fine."

The boy's eyes glowed for a moment, appearing to change color, and his posture changed. "Okay. Um..." His voice was completely different. "Can we let the pilot go now?" He directed the question at BIOS and Kirito.

The two looked at the pilot, and released his arms. He brushed himself off, then stomped back onto his ship to finish unloading the cargo.

The boy looked them over again. A boy about his age, a man who looked like a robot, and two Atlesian Knights. "You wouldn't happen to have been sent by General Ironwood, would you?"

Realizing these were the people the general had sent them to meet, Boot couldn't hold back a comment. "So you're the people we're going to be working with? Four teenage girls and a farm boy?"

Kirito's retort shut him up immediately. "You realize you and BIOS are the only ones here who _aren't_ teenagers, right?"

Yang, on the other hand, took it in good humor. "You think we're bad? Wait until you meet Vomit Boy, Hammer Girl, and the Eastern Emo."

"The Eastern Emo? Nora's going to kill you if she hears you call Ren that," Weiss laughed.

"We should go," the cat-eared girl said. "We've drawn a lot of attention."

A unanimous agreement led them to head for the airfield's exit as a group.

* * *

 **A/N: Another chapter done. I finally got around to introducing Team RWBY in this chapter, although I didn't mention all of their names yet. My plan from here is to run semi-parallel to the story of volume 6, but with minor changes to incorporate everyone. Hopefully I won't completely wreck it.**

 **Thank you to everyone following this story. Having a list of the people who are waiting for a new chapter helps to overcome the procrastination. It's a huge contribution, even if you guys realize it.**

 **I'm still trying to find a good acronym to use as the team name. If anyone has an idea, please tell me. _Pleeeeeease._ I'm not good at acronyms.**

* * *

 **This chapter was completed on November 16, 2018.**


End file.
